The woman nodded and gave David a short smile before it disappeared like rain sprinkles on a hot street, “I appreciate that.”
“You good?” David asked, “I’m not trying to intrude, just grabbing an end of the week drink to unwind and don’t mind talking, or staying quiet.”
The woman seemed to wage a discussion in her own mind before turning more fully to David and putting her matching clutch on the bar and holding out her right hand, “Hello, my name is Paula, and I’ve just been stood up.”
“Wow,” David replied, reaching out to shake her hand, “My name’s David, and I can tell you he’s an assho…Ouch!” David’s hand jerked back, and he was shaking it up and down.
“Oh!” Paula looked at her hand, “Did I shock you? I’m so sorry!” She put her right hand on David’s left arm.
“No, maybe,” David answered, looking at his hand for blood, but there was nothing wrong with his hand, “Wow, it felt like a sharp edge.” David looked over to Paula, “You aren’t secretly a foreign government spy are you, trying to drug me…drug me…drug me up?” David asked, his face going lax for a moment, then snapping back alert. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Paula asked, “I’m not sure I got your question the first time.”
“What will you have, Ma’am?” Barry asked, interrupting the conversation.
She reached over to grab David’s drink and smelled it, “Is this Glenlivet?” Barry nodded. She continued, “I’ll have one the same way, thank you.” Barry went to get the lady her drink. She turned to David, “I’m sorry, what was the question again?”
David pursed his mouth and shrugged, “Beats me.”
Barry returned and slid Paula’s drink to her. She reached inside of her clutch and pulled out three twenties, “This should cover anything for myself and David, yes?” Barry nodded and accepted the bills and then went back towards his conversation at the other end of the bar.
“Wow, thank you,” David told her, picking up his glass, “I’m sorry for your getting stood up, but I can’t help but think this has been a wonderful night for me, so far.”
“Well, just think of it as me paying in advance,” she told him, taking a sip from her drink.
“For what?” David asked, daring to raise his eyebrows, flirting for the first time in a long time.
“Shall we say, services to be rendered?” Paula told him and raised one eyebrow, holding up her drink for a toast.
“Damn, that works for me,” he agreed and clinked her glass.
—
The next morning, David woke up, trying to remember the night. He looked around his room, and the sheets and the bed were definitely more messed up than usual, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary that a night of drinking too much might not have caused.
His head was not pounding, so thank God for small favors. He got up out of his bed and walked past his dresser. His gun and everything he normally would drop on the dresser was there, nothing missing.
He continued into the bathroom and stopped.
His bathroom was done up in white. White marble countertop, white wood siding painted and white tile set at a forty-five-degree angle with gray grout in between.
He took a couple of steps and reached down. The red panties were easy to spot against the white. He picked up the folded piece of paper. Apparently, the dream was real.
“Hello David,
Thank you for a fantastic dinner and even more wonderful night. I hope another girl gets as lucky as I did when they get stood up.
Because ‘Up’ should be your middle name.”
David smirked and continued reading,
“I hope my payment in advance was sufficient, I look forward to your payback.
All my best,
Paula.”
He turned over the note a couple of times, she hadn’t left a phone number, so how were they supposed to get together for payback?
QBBS Merideth Reynolds
Darryl and Scott milled around the crowd standing in the large cavern. In the future, this cavern was probably going to be used for shipbuilding, refurbishment or disassembly. However, for now, it was a good place to host thousands of people who had emigrated to the Etheric Empire.
This was a smaller group, maybe three thousand. Although it had been over a year since the last jihadist had tried to join and assassinate Bethany Anne, the two guys mingled in the audience to see if they could get a read on anything bad before it happened.
Presently, there was a ten-foot-tall stage which was built on one side of the room. It was kept clear except for these events when Bethany Anne, John, and Eric would arrive.
Bethany Anne had delivered thirty-two of these speeches so far, and she understood each might be the final speech for the new people joining them, and always delivered her best effort. Each month more impediments for people to emigrate was put in front of people on Earth.
In the end, those that were joining had the possibility of giving up their lives, and they needed to be provided her best effort to help them decide which way they wanted to jump. With her, or back to Earth.
Scott nodded and smiled to a young family. The dad seemed hesitant to interrupt him, perhaps he was an introvert. Scott looked around to confirm nothing seemed amiss and then stepped closer to the group.
“How are you?” He asked the parents as he fist bumped their young, dark haired boy who smiled at him.
“Excited!” The mom admitted, her green eyes lit up, “This is it, right?”
“Depends,” Scott answered, playing with the boy’s hair who twisted out from under his hands. Scott looked back to the parents, “if you mean is this the meeting where you join with us? Then yes. This is it. You have the option to say no, and we will return you back to Earth fairly soon. Or, you can say yes, and you release all of your ties to Earth’s countries and join the Etheric Empire.”
“Why do we have to release our ties?” The dad asked.
Scott looked at him and shrugged, “That was more an Earth condition than us. However, if you are from Australia, you don’t. There are about seven other countries who also don’t care. For us, those of us in the Etheric Empire, we tend to think humanity first. So, we don’t mind if our countries get their panties in a twist. The world is a big place and countries are your people, your kind. It’s natural for a human to join and want, no need, to be a part of a group. Well,” Scott waved his hand towards the crowd, “this is that family now. We are tied together by a desire to move ahead, and protect the world whether they all deserve it, or not.” He put his hand down, “further, we are going to make our own way out there. We aren’t sure we will ever see the Earth again, so this base station, or another planet might be your home. We don’t know. However,” Scott nodded to the podium, “the Queen is about to appear so catch me later if you have questions, ok?”
The man agreed as his wife gushed excitement and the boy was tugging on his dad’s shirt to be held so he could see better. The dad said ok, and Scott grabbed the little guy and easily lifted him to sit on his dad’s shoulder and then continued his walk through the crowd.
The cavern was lit by the same portable arti-sun technology used in the large cavern, just much smaller and built with small gravitic support which allowed E.I. Merideth to move them around as she needed since this cavern wasn’t in use all of the time. They were about six-feet-wide, and ten-feet long. There were translucent panels in place to try and diffuse the brightness. However, eyes had been damaged by looking directly at them. The effect was no different than looking at the sun while on Earth.
“Your Attention Please,” the speakers attached to the walls boomed out. “This is E.I. Merideth, please focus your attention on the stage and reduce your talking.” There was a pause, ‘Yes, that means you too, Mr. Killsbury.”
Some chuckles were coming from Scott’s left. Merideth always found one or two boisterous people in the group and called them out by name. It was a small reminder that she could hear, and see, just about everything on
the base. With Operations being her area of responsibility, she considered the emigration acceptance event to be a high priority.
The light above dimmed a little, and the light on the stage area increased. There was about a five to seven second wait before John, Eric, Bethany Anne and Ashur appeared, and the crowd went wild as Bethany Anne smiled at those in the audience and waved.
It was always something unique when people appeared out of nowhere.
—
Ashur chuffed and then pranced around the stage, “Oh hush,” Bethany Anne told him as she waved to the crowd on both sides of the stage. “You love this, and you know it. The lights practically make your white coat shine.”
Ashur barked at a child he saw in the audience and wagged his tail before turning towards the three humans and chuffed again.
“Not my fault,” John said, “Bellatrix doesn’t like the limelight, and you know it. She’s happy to stay with the puppies and visit the kids over at the Acadamy.”
It had been a little over two years since TOM and Bethany Anne finally figured out how Ashur was sending messages to her and how she was picking them up. A short, ten-minute modification in the Pod-doc allowed most of those around Ashur to understand him directly now, as well. There were a handful of devices that could be handed out to help Ashur communicate with those who did not have the modifications.
Bethany Anne finally stopped waving and turned her palms face down, using the hand gestures to quiet the group.
Ok ADAM, pipe me through the speakers.
>> Understood.<<
“Welcome to the QBBS Merideth Reynolds, humanity’s first base station and the home of the Etheric Empire.” Bethany Anne’s voice came out of the speakers, easily heard throughout the crowd as she walked back and forth on the forty-foot wide stage.
“Let’s cut to the chase on one of the most confusing terms here, which is Empire.” She started. “As you know, my title right now is Queen Bethany Anne, not Empress. That is because we here are a group of people who understand our sense of identity is a shared purpose to protect those back on Earth. We aren’t ethnically similar as we have members from all over the world. We don’t all share the same language, although everyone is fitted with translation tools and an implant. Eventually, I’m told, we will all speak the same tongue. Our culture, such as it is, will grow with us as we engage in the mutually satisfying effort of making damn sure our families, friends and loved ones back on Earth get to do whatever it is they want to.”
Bethany Anne stopped in the middle of the stage and looked back over the group, “Remember that. We are going out there,” her left arm pointed up and to her left. None in the group knew she was pointing toward the Annex Gate, “to give those on Earth,” her right arm pointed down and to the right, “options. It is not, and cannot, be our responsibility to make sure they do the right thing on Earth.”
Her voice was a little somber, “Think about that. We might be going to save the Earth from aliens only to have Earth destroy itself,” her voice brightened, “Or, they might figure out their problems, and when we, or our children or children’s children, come back, Earth might be Utopia.”
Bethany Anne opened her arms to encompass the crowd, “The only reason they have the opportunity to become Utopia? Is because of you. Your willingness to take chances. Your belief in fighting, or supporting those that fight, and the courage to challenge an unknown future.”
She pivoted and started walking down the stage to her left, “Now I know that some of you, in fact, many of you are also fed up with what is going on with our world.” She turned around and started back the other way, “and frankly many on the world are completely upset that you chose to come up here, so don’t expect any accolades from Earth cheering you on as we go through the gate.” She haphazardly pointed back behind her, “It’s that way, if you are curious.”
A bunch of heads turned in the direction of her hand, to stare at the far rock wall perhaps to imagine the Annex Gate hanging in space before returning their focus to her.
Bethany Anne stopped at the far end of the stage, “No, they aren’t happy because, and I quote, ‘you are taking the best and the brightest with you!’” Bethany Anne shrugged, “That’s true, and you know why?”
“I asked you,” she said a little louder, DO YOU KNOW WHY?”
This time, she got the ‘NO, WHY?’ response shouted from the crowd along with cheering as she stood up there, grinning and proud, in front of her people.
“Because you don’t take your fucking ‘B’ team when the future of EARTH is at stake! That’s why!”
This time, there was bedlam in the cavern, the shouts of support and comradery helping draw those on the floor together. Realizing they shared a common goal, and all of them were ‘A’ team players pulled together to help make this goal happen.
“Now, you can’t follow that which you don’t know, and I won’t, under any circumstances, leave you clueless. However, here is the gotcha. If you already know you want to go back to Earth, you need to make your way to the back of the cavern to any of the five people dressed in green. You will be returned to Earth within the next three days.”
She clapped her hands, “Go on! We don’t have all the time in the World here, folks. There is no shame in realizing you want to be back with loved ones. None at all.” She put a hand on her forehead, acting like she needed to shelter her eyes from the glare, “I see a handful of people back there already and at least,” she looked over the crowd, “maybe three or four moving in that direction.”
“Unfortunately,” she dropped her hand, “if you stay for the next part of this talk, you will be returned to Earth just hours from us jumping through the gate. Some family discussions just need to happen with family, ok?”
Bethany Anne was surprised, only seven people seemed to be in the back. She nodded her head and those individuals were escorted out of the larger chamber.
Once the group had left, she continued her speech. “Now, you will be offered one more opportunity to leave this chamber and return to Earth after my next speech. But unfortunately, your return will have to be right before we go through the gate as what I’m about to share is private, for our group only. Is this understood?”
She saw many heads’s nodding to her, “Good. The first is that we,” she pointed to those on the stage with her, “and others of my team are modified humans. Meaning,” she put her arms up to quiet the people, “we have advanced technology allowing us to do some amazing stuff. One of them,” she turned to her left and took a step, to suddenly appear at the other side of the stage to the silence of the crowd, “is to walk through another dimension.” She pointed from where she had been and then to where she stood, “This ability is pretty unique, as are other abilities.” She put out her hand, focused on creating an etheric ball of energy, It was similar to the one that she and TOM had worked out when she first melted those damned pins the guys had been wearing years ago.
Two or three children in the crowd started clapping, and Bethany Anne smiled. It was nice to create something that brought joy to her people, not always death.
Light them up, guys. She sent out.
Both John and Eric smiled and held out their hands, each creating purple globes as well. It wasn’t much more than a light source at this moment, but these balls could be quite destructive. The teams were still experimenting to see if the ability could be refined.
“What you see here, are examples of Etheric energy. Hence, the reason for the name Etheric Empire.” Bethany Anne pushed her globe up and reached out with her right hand as if commanding John and Eric’s little balls, no bigger than a small snowball to join hers as they floated up about twenty feet and out over the crowd before finally disappearing.
She started walking back to the center of the stage, “We use the Etheric as an energy source, a conduit, and for other nifty abilities.”
“What you think of as Vampires, the folklore, are actually modified humans who had messed up nanocytes. They needed bl
ood as a conduit to acquire the Etheric energy their nanocytes need to live. Fortunately, we have fixed this issue.”
Bethany Anne stood in the middle of the stage and looked out over the crowd. Each person feeling as if she spoke personally to them alone. “You need to know the measure of the woman you would follow into space, to other solar systems, taking peace or war with me as we track a group of aliens who have tried already to use Earthlings in their schemes. And they will be coming back.”
Her voice deepened.
“Hear me, all of you who are in this cavern,” she continued, “my name is Bethany Anne Nacht, I am the Queen of the Etheric Empire. But, before that, I was the Queen of the UnknownWorld, and I am The Queen Bitch!”
By her last words, Bethany Anne’s eyes were glowing red, her hair was floating due to the energy she was processing, but not using. The speakers had been turned off because her voice needed no support.
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